1. Technical Field
The invention relates to electronic networks. More particularly, the invention relates to a method and apparatus for providing increased content from a resource constrained device.
2. Description of the Prior Art
With the explosive growth of the Internet, computer users and network administrators are requiring that they be able to access and administer systems via a World Wide Web (Web) browser. The graphical interfaces to which users have become accustomed require large amounts of data storage. Systems that have large amounts of disk storage are able to present this information directly to the user.
Embedded systems, such as printers and other peripheral devices, typically have less data storage capacity. This lack of capacity limits the content that such embedded devices can provide directly to a user. As a result of this lack of storage capacity, such embedded devices must present a less elegant, non-intuitive interface to a user, e.g. an interface that is presented textually with few graphical images. This may cause confusion to the user as to how to access information on the device and how to configure the device.
It would be advantageous to provide a technique that allows a resource constrained embedded device to offer greater content to a user when the device is accessed, for example, where the device supports a commonly accepted Web browser metaphor.